The present invention relates to a method and system for printing medical labels, particularly using a hand-held, portable instrument communicating wirelessly with a printer.
Physicians and other medical office personnel are responsible to produce a number of medical documents associated with patient care. Examples of such documents are prescriptions, lab orders, referrals, prior authorizations, medical charts, billing forms, disability applications and patient correspondence, all requiring specific medical data to be entered in writing thereon. These data typically reside in a fixed location, such as a central computer, and must be selected, assembled and hand written or typed onto the medical document, a time consuming and error prone process.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method and system for printing medical labels that provides for decreasing the time and effort required of the physician or other medical office personnel to enter medical data onto the medical documents.
The method for printing medical documents of the present invention solves the aforementioned problems and meets the aforementioned needs by providing a hand-held computer, a printer and a wireless data communication interface for communicating between the hand-held computer and the printer.
Medical data are organized in the computer into predetermined type files. Preferably, the type files are organized into data pertaining to patients, addresses, doctors, diagnoses, medications, and laboratory procedures. The computer preferably presents the type files on a display thereof, and a user selects from among the type files, preferably by touching the display.
The data are further preferably organized into sub-files hierarchically associated with the type files. The sub-files are preferably identified by a predetermined limited number of the alphanumeric characters found in a selected portion of the data. Preferably, the user enters selected characters into the computer, and the computer responds by presenting all matching sub-files on the display. The user selects from among the sub-files, preferably by touching the display. The method also provides for entering new data into the computer.
The computer communicates selected data to the printer over the wireless communications interface and the printer prints the data on a label. The label is applied or affixed to a medical document, for preparing the medical document.
Therefore, it is a principal object of the present invention to provide a novel and improved method and system for preparing medical documents.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and system for printing medical labels for application or affixation to medical documents.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a method and system for printing medical labels that provides for increased speed of preparing the medical documents.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a method and system for printing medical labels that provides for increased accuracy in preparing the medical documents.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a method and system for printing medical labels that provides for the aforementioned objectives while providing for greater legibility than is ordinarily provided by hand-writing on the medical documents.
It is still a further object of the present invention to provide a method and system for printing medical labels that provides for increased ease of preparing medical documents.
It is yet a further object of the present invention to provide a method and system for printing medical labels that provides for portable use.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and system for printing medical labels that provides for the aforementioned objects at minimal cost.
The foregoing and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will be more readily understood upon consideration of the following detailed description of the invention, taken in conjunction with the following drawings.